Oh shit, what am I thinking? Yes! There was something important to write about today! I got a surprise phone call. At first the caller asked for me by my full name, and then once he was sure it was me, he began to refer to me by the nickname I had used off and on when I was younger and by the name my family uses. After about 30 seconds, I recognized the voice. It was Jerreme! AKA JE (as in jerremE as opposed to jeremY aka JY, our other friend). He thought I had caller ID or something, but no, I remember his voice! JE was one of Erin and Ben's friends from high school. He was actually a big part of the reason I started hanging out with Erin's friends. Once, when Erin was having a party, Erin had Jerreme call me up and invite me over to his (Erin's) house. This was very odd for me since Erin is my cousin and all. But anyway, JE called and we ended up talking for about an hour or so. Of course, I developed a fast and furious crush on him, but I was all like 16 and stuff, so that was pretty run-of-the-mill. Anyway, JE started inviting me to all of their schindigs. There was one in particular I remember very well. There was a huge snow storm coming - not unlike the one that just hit Maryland this past weekend - so Erin called up his friends and invited them over to be snowed in at his house. His dad and Lydia were out of town (Lydia being my step-aunt and Erin's stepmom). So, Becky (Erin's sister), Shelly (my step-cousin/erin's stepsister), Rob (son of Erin's father's ex-girlfriend and almost became Erin's stepbrother as a result), Jerreme, and I went over to Erin's house. My uncle's house is way back in the woods - the driveway is about 2 miles long - and it has lots of fields and hills all around - perfect for fort building and sledding etc. So anyway, we all stayed over, it snowed about 2 or 3 feet, we went sledding and built ramps and forts. We played boardgames and JE taught us all about the basics of wrestling. We built a fire. I still remember the few CD's we had - Trisha Yearwood (we only listened to one song - She's In Love With The Boy), Chicago (I HATED the CD - Rob was the one who liked it), Green Jello (Little pig, little pig let me in!), Primus (Sailing the Seas of Cheese), They Might Be Giants (Apollo), and I THINK we had Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but I'm not sure if we had those yet or not (they may have come out the following year). Anyway, it was great fun. JE was also present for the night we went driving all over the county with Ben and Q (the friend who visited back in December) until about 6AM. That was the only time I ever got in trouble for staying out too late. JE was also the one who started the practice of eating half a taco bell burrito and leaving it under some poor person's windshield wiper. He and Erin once put a dead fish in Ben's gutter (Ben had a house where the gutter was right under the upstairs windows). It smelled. Ben called me up at 7AM on a Saturday to drive over, pick him up, drive him to Erin's house, pick up Erin and JE and drive them back to Ben's house to remove said dead fish. At that point I had a crush on Ben, so my love knew no bounds. I did the driving, but that day I also got over my crush on Ben - he became very human to me that morning. Ben and JE competed over my cousin, Erin, quite a bit. They kind of hated each other, actually. They got into all kinds of annoying competitions for varoius people's affections. For a while, they were fighting over me too, sort of. They both started calling me all the time. So anyway, yes, Ben and JE both started out as Erin's friends. But Erin's friends and my friends melded eventually. We had a giant group of people who hung out together those last years of high school - we had 30 people over to Erin's house once to play capture the flag in the woods - using bean bag chairs as flags and having everyone dressed in black and crawling all over commando-style trying to capture the bean bag chair.

So there's a muddled and disorganized history of Jerreme (and now you know how Ben fits in too!). But then, in college, Ben went to school with me in Maryland, Erin went to school in Maine, and JE wandered off to school in Baltimore - but then I guess he dropped out or transferred or something... I can't really remember now... and moved with his parents to Texas. And ever since then, I think that I have heard from him maybe twice... maybe three times. I certainly hadn't talked to him since before I moved to Seattle. I may have sent him a postcard during my cross-country trip, immediately after college, but it had been at least five years since we talked. I knew he'd moved and I didn't have his contact info anymore - and I knew he didn't have mine because I didn't have any Seattle contact info when we last spoke. So the point of the matter is, (I'm getting there. Shut up.) that it was QUITE a surprise to be hearing form JE again. It was even more surprising that he knew that I'd just broken up with John.

We spent a good deal of the conversation trying to catch up on the basics (Oh yeah! You had brothers! That's right! Where are your parents now? What are you doing now? Where do you live?), but I think that we shall be in touch again soon. I've been watching for him ever since I moved out here - thinking now and again that i see his face, somewhat aged, in a crowd - I know that Seattle or at least Washington was one of his favorite places that he ever lived, so I expect that someday he will be back.

And, miracle of miracles, Ben called too. You may be decieved by the fact that Ben is one of my favorite people and a good friend, however, Ben almost NEVER calls - and certainly about never calls back either. Ben had a COPS like episode trying to get his rent money from drunken puffy boy who is subletting his apartment. The drunken boy was all Mr. "I'm going to fucking kill you. I've given you enough rent!" and running down the street barefoot in the snowstorm while the cops chased him. How's that for excitement?

My life, however, still consisted of baking cookies with Abby.

And otherwise, all is quiet on the pacific northwestern front.